I was driving down a byway of my hometown when I was pulled over by the police. The officer grilled me on my private life as he perused the documents I gave him.
“What do you do for a living?”
“I’m a student,” I said.
“What do you study?” the officer persisted, with his second chin jiggling after the question, as a bell does in a shop when somebody enters — though it made not a sound, but a silent wobble, which hypnotized me and made me miss the question.
“I beg your pardon?”
“What do you study?” he repeated with an increased wobble, and handed me back my papers.
“English language and literature, sir.”
He growled, spat on the ground, and protested: “Oh, the shame, don’t you know they bombed us in ’99?” His second chin emphatically swayed, underscoring his condemnation.
He was right. I was a traitor. I should have known better, especially since I was living in Belgrade at the time it was bombed by English language and literature.
As soon as I got home, I went to the attic, threw some boxes aside, until I found one marked: “Branko’s childhood journal and other shit that we, his parents, couldn’t throw out, out of sentimental obligation to him. He is our child after all, and we are totally glad we didn’t have an abortion.”
A lengthy title, I thought, and splayed open the box.
Here I present to you some of the excerpts from my childhood journal, documenting the atrocities committed by English language and literature against the good people of Belgrade:
April 6th: Grandma Stana died today, she was hit in the head by Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations.
April 12th: …We found my big brother in an alley behind our apartment building, he was buried under thick tomes of Shakespeare, we pulled him out, he was still breathing. That same night he had nightmares, I know, because he was screaming in his sleep. He also wet the bed, I know, because his was the upper bunk.
April 20th: The air raid alarm sounded, we all rushed to the basements. Not everybody made it in time; some people were still in the streets screaming: “aaaah Pride and Prejudice aaaaah.” We cowered in the basement, unable to help them, as paperback Penguin editions plopped down on innocent civilians, causing severe papercuts and mild bruises.
April 22nd: It is my birthday today. I asked my parents what they will get me. They said that, considering the current economic situation, I will probably get diddly squat. I didn’t know what that was, but I was excited.
April 23rd: The RTS building was destroyed today. Its roof caved in under the immense pressure of Sherlock Holmes and Agatha Christie pocketbooks.
April 24th: It’s been three days now, no birthday present.
May 1st: My brother told me diddly squat means I’ll get nothing, and that I was stupid for thinking otherwise. I told him he wet the bed. He punched me in the throat. I called him a base knave — a phrase I took up from Shakespeare in order to trigger my brother’s now very evident PTSD.
May 2nd: I played in the street with my friends, it was a quiet day, until an immense boom deafened us. The shock wave sent us to the ground, the raised dust and debris blinded us, and the fear paralyzed us. As it all settled down, and fear gave way to curiosity, we were aghast to see how narrowly we escaped death. Right beside us, in a fresh, smoking crater, lay a massive fourth edition of Encyclopedia Britannica.
Moved by remorse, I dropped out of college, swore never again to take up a book by a foreign writer, which is now evident in the shit prose you just endured.
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